The Uristocrat LeBron James Free Agency guide

Well the big day is finally here. July 1, 2010. This is the day that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and other NBA Superstars can become unrestricted free agents. It seems like everybody’s been telling LeBron where to go – from President Obama to Worldwide Wes – except us. Well, that’s about to change. Here’s what we think LeBron should do.

New York Knicks

A few years ago, everybody figured this would be the team that had the best chance to get LeBron. In fact, they basically threw away the past two seasons to save cap room. Now, they’re in at least 4th place, behind Cleveland, Miami, and Chicago. At least they can sign Joe Johnson. (I wrote that with a straight face, sike!).

Assets – Mike D’Antoni, Madison Square Garden.

Pro’s – New York F’n City. Once he finally goes fully bald (that hairline gets further back each season), they’ll be down if he gets a logo or two tatted on his dome. Free lap dances at Scores for life. He’ll make crazy money in advertising here.

Con’s – The owner is nuts. The team sucks.

Boston Celtics

This just became an option a few days ago when Paul Pierce opted out of his contract. I doubt this is on the table yet, and I’m not sure he’ll even consider it but it’s worth mentioning now they technically have the cap room to sign him.

Assets – Rajon Rondo, KG (or what’s left of him), rabid fan base

Pro’s – Rondo is a top five point guard, if not higher, who can take a lot of the scoring and ball handling responsibilities off his shoulders. Boston has a crazy legacy and he’ll be constantly surrounded by legends like Bill Russell.

Con’s – The fans will be brutal if they don’t win right away. Big Baby is, kinda, well you know … some stuff he does is kinda …. Pause.

Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers have the cap space and are planning on recruiting him, but c’mon, they’re the Clippers. He can’t sign there, right?

Assets – Blake Griffin, Eric Gordon, Baron Davis

Pro’s – LA is a city made for stars. He’s going to make a billion dollars in endorsements there.

Con’s – Donald Sterling is the worst owner in the league. He’ll be stuck in Kobe’s shadow, and has at least 5 rings to go before he could start to run the city. They’re cursed anyway, he’d probably break his leg in three different places the day he signed.

Dallas Mavericks

Mark Cuban is interested, like every other owner, and would be willing to give up anybody except Dirk to get a sign-and-trade done. Players love playing for him and Dallas is a great city. Assets – Mark Cuban’s money, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Mark Cuban’s money

Pro’s – Dirk would be the perfect sidekick for LeBron. Mark Cuban won’t spare an expense.

Con’s – Who knows who he’d be playing with by time they did whatever sign-and-trade it would take to get him to Dallas.

New Jersey Nets

I can’t lie, the Russian dude is kinda cool. In two years they’ll be out of the swamps of Jersey and in Brooklyn. Devin Harris and Brook Lopez are good players and they could compete for a championship quickly with LeBron on board.

Pro’s – He’ll be the King of New York, via Newark for two years. His BFF Jay-Z owns the team.

Con’s – He’ll be stuck in Jersey for two years. He’ll have to hear Avery Johnson’s voice every day.

Miami Heat

Miami now has enough room to sign three max players. This could mean LeBron, D. Wade and Chris Bosh on the same team. With the Uristocrat staff filling out the rest of the squad, we’d win the next eight championships (that’s basically the scenario they’re banking on if they use 95% of their salary cap space on three players).

Pro’s – Playing with Wade and Bosh would be like running with the Redeem Team for 82+ games a year. Miami is a cool city, especially if you’re loaded, and the weather is a lot better than Cleveland’s.

Con’s – If he has to go to Miami to get a ring, they’ll say he needed D. Wade to win and couldn’t do it on his own. If he wants to be remembered as one of the all-time greats, this is one of the last situations he’s going to want to be in.

Chicago Bulls

Chicago is the third biggest media market in the country and is the city where Jordan built his legacy. I’m sure Gatorade and Nike have Chicago Bulls themed LeBron x MJ campaigns ready to go. Besides ads, they have a solid young nucleus, starting with top 5 point guard Derrick Rose. This team is a LeBron-type player away from making a deep playoff run.

Assets – Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng

Pro’s – The Bulls have enough cap room to sign him and another max player (Chris Bosh?). This is another city where he’ll make a killing off the court as well.

Con’s – He’ll be stuck in MJ’s shadow unless he wins 10 rings. It might even be colder than Cleveland during the winter. It will make him look like a Worldwide Wes puppet. (This is the team many people suspect Wes wants him to sign with).

Cleveland Cavaliers

The there’s these guys. His hometown team. The only team he’s played with in the NBA. Before their playoff collapse, everyone was saying how deep the team was and how it was a locked they’d win the chip. Now that they took a big L, all of a sudden ‘he doesn’t have enough talent around him in Cleveland.’ That’s BS. Jamison and Mo Williams can ball, Varejao is annoying as hell but grabs boards, and J. J. Hickson is an emerging player. They play great defense and for the most part have good chemistry on the court.

Assets – Jamison, Mo Williams, Varejao, the actual assets LeBron has Cleveland, including a gigantic mansion he’ll never be able to sell

Pro’s – He’s a God there. They can give him an extra year and 30M more than any other team.They have a good team around him and the owner will do anything for him. Him and his boys run the city like they’ll never be able to do anywhere else.

Con’s – Every city listed above > Cleveland. No offense to Clevelanders, but be honest, you probably want to move to NYC too. One of his teammates is banging his moms (allegedly). He probably has secret clauses in his contracts that give him more money if he plays anywhere but Cleveland.

That said, I think he should resign with the Cavs. Bringing a championship to Cleveland will cement his legacy. If he leaves, he’ll be knocked as a quitter and everybody will point out he couldn’t done until he played with player x. Resign with your hometown team, work on getting better on the court and bring a chip back home.